Cost of brute force decryption

[Bill Stewart]

At 02:44 PM 6/5/96 -0700, you wrote:
>> > 	"For example a 40-bit key takes about $10,000 worth of supercomputer 
>> > time and two weeks to crack.  Although this key may be adequate to 
>> > protect my checking account, it's probably not large enough for the 
>> > accounts of a major corporation.
>> The figures look familiar.  No references around.  I'm not sure it would 
>> require a whole two weeks for 40-bits, though.  Possibly less than a 
>> day? (Or was that why you asked baout the figures?)

It was from The Newspapers, of course :-)  The "$10,000 of supercomputer time"
was in an initial press release description by somebody in Netscape or RSA
after the RC4/40 Netscape crack, and was way high.  (Check Altavista...)

However, it's not too far off for the cost of a DES crack, where "supercomputer"
is defined as "a special-purpose cracking machine" rather than "a Cray"..
(Maybe an order of magnitude high for that.)  And the description of
$10,000 as "maybe enough to protect my checking account, but not large enough
for the accounts of a major corporation" is about right.  
#				Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart +1-415-442-2215 stewarts at ix.netcom.com
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